My "paleo" experience after 14 days.

Greetings

First some short ramble about my background. I'm 29 years old, live in Denmark, work as a civil engineer with a master degree in information technology. Have always been concerned about my health and trying to do the right thing for my body. No alchohol, no cigarettes and in generel what I considered to be a "healthy" eating habits. Always been rather physical active, and been working out on at least 3 days per week for the past 3 years. I started the first 2 years lifting weights and for the past year I have been working with body weight exercises. Progress have been limited on the bodyweight part, but my routine have been lacking focus and dedication to be honest (not proud of it, but I won't lie to myself). I am 172 cm high and am 79kg heavy. I would say I am normal-heavily built. I would guess my body fat is around 19% or so.

I have for the past 14 days changed my diet completely to a paleo "diet". That means no grains/legumes,dairy or refined sugar. Also I cook all my meals myself and make it from as plain and varied food sources as possible. I got the inspiration for this dietary (is that a word?) experiment by stalking these forums, and decided to order Robb Wolfs book "The Paleo Solution". After reading the book I decided to try out the 30 day "challenge" of eating paleo.

Now to the reason why I write this post. I thought I would like to share my experiences thus far, as I am quite excited about the project in general. Have I seen improvements ? Yes I have indeed! This stuff works, period. After around 5 days sugar craves disappeared, and my brain begin to crave the good foods instead of sugar. Really after the first 5 days it has not felt like a "diet" at all. I have litterally been struggling without success to rid the sugar from my diet for years. The bonus is the food tastes so damn delicious! I can honestly say that my meals have never given me such pleasure on a regular basis as they do now. Yes its a success story in my case at least. The 5 biggest improvements observed so far:

1: Increased energy levels throughout the day including workouts.

2: Increased mental status (less stress, better mood, more motivation for workouts)

3: Better sleep.

4: I am quite sure I have an increased level of testosterone.

5: I have leaned up a bit (lost around 1kg) even though I eat till im satisfied.

To say it short, I am experiencing an overall improvement of at least 20% of everything concerning mental and physical health. Thats at least how it feels. I have just begun a more dedicated workout routine this week so I can not conclude anything about strength improvement and hypertrophy, but my workouts feel great and they feel right, so I am very optimistic!

I'm so excited that I would like to share it with people that likely will understand what I am talking about.

I am sorry for any spelling and grammar mistakes

Soren

Congrats, Soren. I've been eating basically paleo and it does make a huge difference in everything!

Glad to hear you found a diet that works for you!

You realize that 14 days is a way too short period to make any conclusions?

And according to this table the paleo diet didn't help the paleolithic people to live past the age of 33. So you better be careful if you wanna live for more than another 3-4 years.

Humans by Era Average Lifespan at Birth

(years)

Upper Paleolithic 33

Neolithic 20

Bronze Age 18

Classical Rome 20-30

Pre-Columbian North America 25-35

Medieval Britain 20-30

Early 20th Century 30-40

1700-1900s 45-55

Current world average 67

Well, the last one was a joke but 14 days are really way too few to make any conclusions. In fact it is very common to imagine that you feel any different. So let another 180 day pass and then tell us what's going on.

BTW. I might try that one too, just for a change.

Zingam, there are far too many factors in life expectancy to make the argument that paleo diet is not effective based on the table you posted... I can't even begin to list them all. If you live in a horribly dirty area and you get sick or an infection, there's only so much that diet can do for you.

The evidence is in the science and personal experiences. 14 days, although only a short time, is, IMO, plenty long enough to experience benefits of a changed diet.

Apparently you don't eat paleo or very close to it. Hahaha... I believe everyone here who has achieved impressive physical feats eats something very similar to if not reasonably strictly paleo. I don't consider myself a strict paleo eater because I only eat what I think is healthy for me, regardless of whether it is "paleo" or not; however, there isn't anything that I eat that a science backed paleo expert could have a problem with.

You should definitely try it! I've never met/heard of someone who hasn't liked it.

It is amazing how much of a difference it makes to cook all of your own food from fresh vegetables and meats, and to eliminate added sugars from the diet. It is like living in a different world!

How good I feel is what keeps me eating the way I do.

The real magic of what you are doing comes from ditching the pre-made foods and added sugars, and adding in more plants and unprocessed meats. The whole dairy and grain thing is very individual, if you are not sensitive to either then you won't notice a positive difference. One thing that does seem to help a lot of people is going gluten free, so restricting grain choices to gluten free varieties might be a good thing but completely ditching stuff like buckwheat or rice is a pretty bad idea because you will have an incredibly hard time getting the nutrition that you actually need for your best possible physical performance (not to be confused with the best performance you have experienced thus far) as well as your optimal long term health. It is virtually impossible to get all the carbs you need as a high performance athlete (assuming you're doing the WODs 4x per week, for example) without those if you're over 120-130 lbs. The volume of non-grain foods is just super high and so is the price.

Back in the day you just dug roots up and threw them in the fire, but that won't work for most of us anymore.

Slizzardman, from what I have read, you seem to have a sort of "high-carb paleo*" approach to nutrition.

After a year or so of eating low carb (> 150 gr mostly) I am transitioning to a higher carb intake, at least on workout days, so i find that very interesting.

My macros are roughly

- 50 % carbs, coming mostly from lentils, self made rice pudding and sometimes potatoes = 400 gr

- 30 % protein, coming from whey, lentils, dairy and meat = 200 gr

- 20 % fat, coming from aforementioned meat, dairy and a piece of 85% dark chocolate now and then = 80 gr

Does this seem like a good idea for a 190 lbs male, according to your principles?

*Paleo meaning unprocessed foods and gluten-free

I have been eating mostly paleo for awhile now and I'm pretty lean and was making progress but I noticed I lacked energy throughout the day and I was unable to gain weight. I started drinking more milk but this led to stomach problems and so I quit drinking it completely and I have been using germinated brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat groats, and baked sweet potatoes as new high carb sources and I have finally been able to add extra lean muscle mass and my energy levels are pretty regular now. The higher carb, less strict paleo has definitely been working for me.

Firstly a reply to Zingman:

You realize that 14 days is a way too short period to make any conclusions?

Yes I do realize that. I also realize that statistically 1 test subject is not enough to conclude anything, and even with large number of test subjects and a prolonged test period there would be uncertainties due to differences in lifestyle, genes, body type, homrone levels, racial differences, age, allergies and diseases, stress and mental condition etc etc. My post was not about making conclusions about the paloe diet. The point was to share my experiences. I do experience some very real physical improvments take it or leave it. Will it work for me in the long run? We will see

I am currently trying a 30-day strict paleo diet. I will surely continue along the lines because how great I feel. I do not think it will be a strict peleo diet after the 30 days, and I will probably add dairy, buckwheat and potatoes in the long run we will see. But I will continue to cook all my meals from clean food sources and remove refined sugars. I think that is the biggest contributing factors. Will I introduce grain again? I do not think so, but if I do it will be in limited quantites (when eating out and so on).

I have no reason to change the diet as it seems right now though, as I have lots of energy throughout the day. Even on my M/T/Th/F strength routine (Something resembling killroy70) with short sprint sessions on W/Sat and stretching in the weekend. Actually I have never had this much energy or at least not for as far as I remember. So no problems yet. I eat a ratio of about 2:3 meant/veggies. I have not had enough time to experience any clear physical gains in lean mass, but my primary goal is strength.

Right now 4 hours after todays workout, I feel awsome Thats what counts for me.

Soren

Rower said:

Slizzardman, from what I have read, you seem to have a sort of "high-carb paleo*" approach to nutrition.

After a year or so of eating low carb (> 150 gr mostly) I am transitioning to a higher carb intake, at least on workout days, so i find that very interesting.

My macros are roughly

- 50 % carbs, coming mostly from lentils, self made rice pudding and sometimes potatoes = 400 gr

- 30 % protein, coming from whey, lentils, dairy and meat = 200 gr

- 20 % fat, coming from aforementioned meat, dairy and a piece of 85% dark chocolate now and then = 80 gr

Does this seem like a good idea for a 190 lbs male, according to your principles?

*Paleo meaning unprocessed foods and gluten-free

The protein is a bit high, but probably not dangerously so. You may want to experiment with only getting around 150g of protein but spreading it out in very small doses of 15-20g. You will get better results.

Outside of that, there are no obvious issues other than no mention of lots of veggies.

Looks pretty solid overall, nice work!

element3904 said:

I have been eating mostly paleo for awhile now and I'm pretty lean and was making progress but I noticed I lacked energy throughout the day and I was unable to gain weight. I started drinking more milk but this led to stomach problems and so I quit drinking it completely and I have been using germinated brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat groats, and baked sweet potatoes as new high carb sources and I have finally been able to add extra lean muscle mass and my energy levels are pretty regular now. The higher carb, less strict paleo has definitely been working for me.

It's not just you, it works that way for everyone. Having said that, I do believe there is value in being more strictly low carb (restricting to truly essential carbs, around 130g per day for even the smallest person) and maintaining that for 2-3 months before taking another 2-3 months to phase into the more long-term appropriate high-carb "paleo" diet.

This is the diet that will work best for pretty much any physically active athlete, but it is important to understand that "this diet" is really a set of biological rules, not specific food selections. Any food that doesn't irritate you and falls within the basic biological parameters of how human metabolism works will be fine, just remember to get your veggies in many different colors and varieties. If preference is given to anything it should be greens, keeping in mind that you should consult with your doctor to make sure you will not be adding excessive vitamin K for people on certain prescription medications and other such issues.

Thanks for the reply!

I also eat about 500 gr of Broccoli a day, but didn't mentioned it, since it doesnt contribute much to the nutrional breakdown.

As probably everyone else, who was overweight at one point in their lifes, I am still afraid of carbs, but I will see how it works out.

This type of diet is also super convenient, since I can pre-cook almost everything in large values, which saves so much time!

Carb fear is really about learning portions and timing. Takes time to adjust to and convince yourself but small steps, not only does your body get more time to adapt but your mind does as well.

canthar said:

Carb fear is really about learning portions and timing. Takes time to adjust to and convince yourself but small steps, not only does your body get more time to adapt but your mind does as well.

That is a really important point that I totally didn't think about... Mental adjustment. Great post!

slizzardman said:

It's not just you, it works that way for everyone. Having said that, I do believe there is value in being more strictly low carb (restricting to truly essential carbs, around 130g per day for even the smallest person) and maintaining that for 2-3 months before taking another 2-3 months to phase into the more long-term appropriate high-carb "paleo" diet.

I will surely keep this in mind in 2-3 months from now or if I find I struggle with energy/gaining strength. Currently strict paleo works for me in terms of energy levels. I have no problem keeping energy throughout the day on a 4 per week strength 2 per week sprint schedule.

About timing. Based on the sticky post on pre-mid-post nutrition (Thank you Slizzardman, awsome post) I have the past two days timed meals as well I could around and during my workouts. I do not take supplements, im talking, fruit, veggies and meat and water here. These past two days with more care on timing of meals, I have noiced a quite different feeling in my worked muscles. I do not know anything about the long term results but it feels right. I have also noticed that I am able to work harder this way, and even then my recovery seems faster. Past two days were tough, and now this evening I feel ready and motivated for a workout (so long till monday hehe). So timing of food seems to have an immediate noticable effect unless I have gone completely mental. If I were to add carbs in the future (not grains), I would certainly time it around my workouts.

-Soren

Good work! It doesn't matter whether it is meat or powder, as long as you are getting frequent small doses along with some carbs (fruit, veggies, whatever) your recovery and performance will always be better!

The addition of more carbs, (particularly around the workouts) should you choose to do so in the future, will be more of a change from good results to BETTER results unless you are severely carb deficient right now, which it doesn't sound like you are.

slizzardman said:

Good work! It doesn't matter whether it is meat or powder, as long as you are getting frequent small doses along with some carbs (fruit, veggies, whatever) your recovery and performance will always be better!

The addition of more carbs, (particularly around the workouts) should you choose to do so in the future, will be more of a change from good results to BETTER results unless you are severely carb deficient right now, which it doesn't sound like you are.

How come you're a proponent for a higher carb diet in contrast to a higher fat diet? How will carbs add to ones performance? I suppose a workout like the WOD won't empty the glycogen stores so wouldn't a small post workout carb meal be sufficient? Please forgive the question cluster!

Svend said:

slizzardman said:

1) How come you're a proponent for a higher carb diet in contrast to a higher fat diet?

2) How will carbs add to ones performance?

3) I suppose a workout like the WOD won't empty the glycogen stores so wouldn't a small post workout carb meal be sufficient?

3) You will pretty much empty out the muscles you are using, and that replacement sugar has to come from somewhere. That somewhere can not be fatty acids, so protein and carbs are left. Protein can't be turned into sugar quite fast enough for optimal recovery, so your best choice is carbs for several reasons.

A) You will minimize nitrogenous waste, making things easier for your kidneys.

B) Protein synthesis is much higher when you have carbs and protein together

C) The protein you take in will be used almost entirely for anabolic purposes instead of being wasted on energy and gluconeogenesis

D) The process of restoring muscle glycogen takes 24-72 hours depending on how completely you deplete the stores and the size of the muscles. One meal is insufficient. Don't worry, your body will tear up plenty of protein to fill in the gaps, and if that's how you prefer to get your sugar than go ahead. That is just not the most efficient way, for all of these reasons.

1) Who said I was against fat? If you are trying to recompose body mass efficiently then having a modest caloric deficit via dietary fat reduction is the way to go. Fat has only 2 main fates: Be used for energy or be stored as fat. Excess is guaranteed to go into fat storage. Carbs have multiple regulatory uses, from being turned into proteins to being used for immediate energy and replenishing glycogen stores that are depleted through regular activity. Once you have taken care of your carb and protein requirements, the rest of your diet is free to come from fat OR carbs... whichever you like. Won't make much of a difference unless you choose crappy fats or crappy carbs or best yet both together! Trust me, that will be plenty of fat. The truth is, if you are eating meat that is raised on a natural diet you will have a nearly impossible time getting enough fat in your diet to fill out the difference, which is why extra carbs work out quite nicely as long as they are slow to digest.

2) This is last because quite a bit of this answer is covered in the previous two responses. Aside from minimizing muscle breakdown, maximizing protein synthesis and maximizing glycogen stores, think about what we do in resistance training: GLYCOLYTIC WORK. Come on! We burn sugar virtually exclusively in what we do here. Strength-endurance is 95% based on sugar, that is the primary fuel our muscles use during anaerobic work. Fat can not be metabolized anaerobically... Doesn't make sense to focus on fat when fat is not your primary fuel during the WODs or any other resistance training method.

There is an enormous mountain of consistent clinical data showing that when athletes get enough carbs, which many do NOT, their performance increases tremendously compared to the carb-impaired. This applies to both repeat sprints as well as steady state endurance activities lasting 2 hours. We're talking about well over 50% better gains here in terms of repeat sprint performance as well as steady state time to exhaustion. Protein synthesis and the metabolic actions of carbs have now been covered in a pretty complete, if basic, way.

If that doesn't make sense, nothing will.

The most important thing is that when people apply this diet PROPERLY they experience the best gains of their careers. Screw the research, I mean it's nice and it means a lot but in the end you have to see for yourself to believe. If you do this correctly, you will see and be amazed. If you don't, there's nothing wrong with that... you will simply not be able to relate to all the positive experiences that actual proper nutrition brings you. That doesn't mean you'll feel like crap, I am sure you feel great right now with what you do! It simply means that until you experience the gains for yourself you will keep wondering if it's true, no matter how many people around the world and in this forum apply it and rave about their experiences.

Well said. Also reminds me to hide my food intake right now from you. I definitely limit more carbs then fat at the moment. Think breakfast is about 20g of fat. Milk, cheese and nuts. Lunch is less and dinner varies. Haven't really policed myself recently to check my macro numbers. Also whole milk after training is amazing amounts of win. Anyway enough thread jacking.

I read that a great amount of saturated fat is needed to produce testosterone. Wouldn't a low fat diet be problematic in that sense?

canthar said:

Well said. Also reminds me to hide my food intake right now from you. I definitely limit more carbs then fat at the moment. Think breakfast is about 20g of fat. Milk, cheese and nuts. Lunch is less and dinner varies. Haven't really policed myself recently to check my macro numbers. Also whole milk after training is amazing amounts of win. Anyway enough thread jacking.

HAHAHA!!! Whatever man, you do what you do With very brief sports, full glycogen stores really aren't necessary... it all depends on what your goals are but ideal will always be ideal! As long as you get what you want, go for it!

Whole milk after training is indeed awesome! The absorption properties of 1% are a bit more in line with what you want for ideal recovery, but whole milk tastes so much better! I almost always have 16oz of whole milk before I go to bed... I sleep better that way.

What works indeed. Whole milk, oats and casein post training has been doing much better for me then the whey and hi GI carbs. My metabolism is a bit odd. Doesn't help I have year round allergies that meds cannot even fully relieve so my immune system is always in response.

canthar said:

What works indeed. Whole milk, oats and casein post training has been doing much better for me then the whey and hi GI carbs. My metabolism is a bit odd. Doesn't help I have year round allergies that meds cannot even fully relieve so my immune system is always in response.

Yikes! I have noticed that more moderate GI foods work better for me as well in PWO feedings, generally speaking. Sorry to hear about the allergies!

I have informed myself about this died. It is an interesting thing to try for a period of time but if it is possible for someone to live on it for life, I am not quite sure and I am a bit skeptical. It has some interesting ideas. I am not talking about cutting sugar out, that's quite clear. It is never a good idea to consume sugar. Don't get me wrong... I love sugar. It is just so bad... As somebody said: All good things in life make you either fat or they are forbidden or simply immoral.

To stop eating corn and legumes sounds like an interesting idea. It is possible for the whole humanity to stop consuming such food - I don't think so. After all there is only one true rule in nature: adapt or die.

The paleo diet suggest eating alot of meat - now, I don't think that that's a very grand idea. Ever heard of gout - the illness of the rich?

BTW I love mean... at least I used to love it too much before last year's Christmas fasting, when I have decided for the first time to try fasting and since then I eat almost no meat. Well, I eat now much more fish than before but fish isn't meat really

But what I really find improbable about the so called "paleo diet" is the contents: I doubt that people ate so much meat in the first place. Hunting isn't that easy and during paleolithic times their weapons weren't very good. Then the diet of the humans who lived in Denmark 30 000 years ago, would be very different than the diet of the people who lived in Italy, or than the people in Africa. I doubt that those who lived in the icy conditions during the Ice Age would have had lots of fresh vegetables.

Whether corn is evil, I have no idea. The author argues that corn is a poison, well there are all kinds of allergies: people are allergic to foods, cats, stuff, even to other humans This is really very individual.

BTW. The only proven method to prolong your life is a very low calorie diet but you probably know about that.

SorenPA said:

Firstly a reply to Zingman:

You realize that 14 days is a way too short period to make any conclusions?

Yes I do realize that. I also realize that statistically 1 test subject is not enough to conclude anything, and even with large number of test subjects and a prolonged test period there would be uncertainties due to differences in lifestyle, genes, body type, homrone levels, racial differences, age, allergies and diseases, stress and mental condition etc etc. My post was not about making conclusions about the paloe diet. The point was to share my experiences. I do experience some very real physical improvments take it or leave it. Will it work for me in the long run? We will see

I am currently trying a 30-day strict paleo diet. I will surely continue along the lines because how great I feel. I do not think it will be a strict peleo diet after the 30 days, and I will probably add dairy, buckwheat and potatoes in the long run we will see. But I will continue to cook all my meals from clean food sources and remove refined sugars. I think that is the biggest contributing factors. Will I introduce grain again? I do not think so, but if I do it will be in limited quantites (when eating out and so on).

I have no reason to change the diet as it seems right now though, as I have lots of energy throughout the day. Even on my M/T/Th/F strength routine (Something resembling killroy70) with short sprint sessions on W/Sat and stretching in the weekend. Actually I have never had this much energy or at least not for as far as I remember. So no problems yet. I eat a ratio of about 2:3 meant/veggies. I have not had enough time to experience any clear physical gains in lean mass, but my primary goal is strength.

Right now 4 hours after todays workout, I feel awsome Thats what counts for me.

Soren

Zingam said:

Well, I eat now much more fish than before but fish isn't meat really

Just curious... If fish isn't meat is what? :roll: